Comments

  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    ↪StreetlightX
    So in the case of the "understudied" opinions, at least they have the advantage of not being any dumber than the day they were born. Worth considering before looking down on them.
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    ↪StreetlightX
    "Study" of New Age, pseudohistory, conspiracy theories, etc. won't leave you any smarter, and in fact might do damage to your ability to think. I suspect the same is true of lots of philosophy.
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    ↪StreetlightX
    Or maybe if you used the right word, what you were saying would be outed as either trivial or false?
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    ↪StreetlightX
    Then why not use that word? The one that means what you're talking about? And not one that means something else?
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    The difference between minorities and majorities isn’t their size. A minority may be bigger than a majority. — StreetlightX

    :chin:
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    ↪csalisbury
    Truly epic.
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    I have heard it said that being able to lift a lot of weight makes one strong. But in fact, only one unable to lift weight can be strong. For strength is the overcoming of an obstacle, in this case by physical force. But for the strong one, there is no obstacle to overcome, for the ingrained ability to lift it makes it no obstacle at all. Therefore, it is not possible that an increase in muscle mass should make one stronger. Rather, we must recognize that the less muscle one has, and so the less ability one has to move things, the stronger one becomes in principle.
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    It is often thought that hungry people are the ones who want food. How stupid this is! For it is actually those who are full that want food, and in fact a hungry person cannot want food. For to be hungry is to recognize within one's body that food is required, and so to impel the hungry person towards food, independent of any free-floating 'desire.' The freedom to have such desires appears only when one is freed from this material impulse, hence only in the one whose body does not impel them towards food, hence only in the full. The hungry are acting towards food already – the question of whether they desire food therefore simply doesn't arise for them.
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    Let me try.

    Ahem.

    We often think that people who live in dangerous neighborhoods are fearful for their safety. But anyone who's not a moron knows that it is precisely those who live in the safest neighborhoods of all that are fearful! For in order to be fearful, there must be some insecurity over one might possibly lose. But those in dangerous neighborhoods take the reality of their danger for granted -- hence, since they will at some point be robbed or mugged, their apprehension takes on the character of awaiting an accomplished fact, and so they cannot be fearful for their safety, since as we know fear is directed only towards that which is (projected as) non-actual. Only the one who does not take their assault as an accomplished fact can feel such fear -- but such a person must be in, or take themselves to be in, relative safety, since this is precisely the locus of treating the assault as non-actual.

    Am I a philosopher yet?
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    As for the rest, I dunno, people are generally not very bright, and its nice to remind them of that every once in a while. — StreetlightX

    I hope this vapid inversion of platitude is not the best philosophy has to offer!
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    So you don't choose the projects. They're tailored to current research interests of the institution and society at large, and ultimately what you can generate funding for or not. — fdrake

    I actually work in a field not quite so dependent on grant funding, which is part of why I went into it.

    The rest of the post is just a reiteration of some such fallacy as, "Your choices are not infinite or unlimited – ergo, you have no choice."
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    ↪fdrake
    I'm in academia, so – I generally choose how much effort to spend on which projects, whether it's worth being a perfectionist or not, whether I should do something well or if doing it just OK is good enough, when to eat lunch and what to eat, what grades I give students, what positions I apply for in looking for new work, what I decide to research, whether I decide to continue researching something or drop it, what I read, what I write, whether I feel like being friendly to people or not, and so on. I have a lot of latitude in what I do personally, though there are a lot of constraints as well.

    There are a lot of things I'm forced to do, but they're not 100% of my life, or so prominent that I doubt whether I choose anything or whether I have a soul, or anything like that. Where people are in that kind of situation, we should see it as a bad state of affairs, not a metaphysical insight.
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    Do people actually experience the choices they make like this? — fdrake

    Like what? When my hand is "not tipped by force or circumstance?" Sure.

    Whether that's at work in how I choose to approach the problems I've got to solve (you can't choose how you have to work the coffee machine), in my personal life in how I deal with conflict, provide support and share in joy, my choices are carried along by circumstance and necessity. — fdrake

    That sounds...really awful. If you really live that way, there might be something wrong.

    The nowhere is just as important. Such choices occurring nowhere and never means that the account of choice and freedom is more to do with context severed imagination, a fan fiction of the soul with the one true pairing of humanity and absolute freedom, but there aren't absolutes here. Not in this fucking muck. — fdrake

    If this is true about your own life, that's really sad. But I don't think there's much metaphysical baggage to be gotten from it. It would be nice if you lived in circumstances such that, at least once in a while, you did things without being forced to. Never to do anything in that way, to the extent that you start seeing ordinary freedoms as "fan fictions" and doubting whether you have a "soul," etc. sounds really crushing. Many people might live in such physical or psychological circumstances, but it's not all of them, and if you do, it might be better to think about escaping them rather than metaphysicalizing them.
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    ↪StreetlightX
    A lot of your posts are like this – they just invert some platitude (like in the thread claiming that only what we are not in control of is what we're responsible for), and then feign bewilderment or call people stupid when people ask what you're talking about.

    It may be that we are just talking at cross purposes, but in any case I don't think the interaction is going to be helpful. I'm not sure what's so hard about understanding that (i) "control" does not mean "people do what you want" (they can do what you want accidentally, or voluntarily, or even against your wishes), and (ii) violence is so utterly obviously linked with control that I find talking about denials of the point tedious.
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    ↪StreetlightX
    Just because someone does what you want doesn't mean you're in control of them.

    And people that you beat up often do what you want, involuntarily – so you are in control of them.

    How is this difficult?
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    When I ask the kids to fetch a cup of tea, that I don't have to resort to violence (because they love me, because it's out of respect, because I reminded them how I took them to the park the other day) says far more about how I am in control of them than if I had to resort to violence. — StreetlightX

    Presumably, if they do it voluntarily, you aren't in control of them.

    If I have a kid or a slave that I can beat whenever I want, then I am in control of them and the violence. The threat of violence is further often what cements this control, and is an artifact of it.
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    ↪StreetlightX
    This is a strange way of reasoning. Surely those who can get away with violence, because they are in control, are therefore in the best position to carry it out?

    Do you see violence, as you suggested earlier, only on the model of a 'tantrum?' That implies a lack of control, but not all violence takes the form of a tantrum.

    So suppose you're going to beat your slaves or your kids. That's a form of violence, right? And it comes about precisely because of the control you have over the slave or child (and control over the violence).
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    OK, great. So let me ask you another question.

    Who do you think commits the most violence in the world?

    Would you describe those organizations or people as powerful, or not?
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    ↪StreetlightX
    OK, I did. I don't know what you're pointing me to.

    Edit: Nvm, I see now. Did you edit that? I totally didn't see it, twice.
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    Those 'in control' would not need to commit violence, insofar as they are in control. I dunno what to tell you other than that this is fairly widely agreed upon by most who study the anthropology of violence — StreetlightX

    Who says this?
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    ↪StreetlightX
    I don't know. I feel Moorean puzzlement at a lot of what you say, since it seems so strange or false that I start wondering, "what is he talking about?" or "why would someone say that?"

    Your explanation here doesn't really help me. Lots and lots of violence is done with control – in fact those in control often commit violence, every day, because they know they will get away with it.
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    And as anyone who has even a minimal acquaintance with humans knows, expressions of violence are more often than not expressions of a lack of power, or at least a deep fragility in what power there is. — StreetlightX

    ...What?
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    ↪StreetlightX
    The opinions just keep getting radical-er.
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    ↪StreetlightX
    Well, a democratist is no worse than anyone else, I suppose. But it seems like there's a double humiliation involved in taking this line – to shill for democracy is not only to shill for the powers (probably against your own interests), but to do so based on a vision of that state taught to you by a foreign power's (America's) propaganda.

    I don't know if I could live with that!
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    ↪StreetlightX
    You're free to believe that, but belief in the power of a political ideology in spite of all evidence to the contrary strikes me as deluded fanaticism.

    I don't blame you for it, though – the Americans got to you. The good news is, since you aren't one of us, you don't have to believe this nonsense. I think at the end of the day, only an American really believes it anyway...we have to, it's the logic of our empire.
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    It's not yours! Jeez. Americans. — StreetlightX

    I hate to break it to you, my friend. We're living in your head rent-free, as the kids say.

    No, but a distaste for politics has always been a bad sign of things to come. — StreetlightX

    In my own life, I have always found overtly political people to be most repulsive in their personal lives. But maybe that is just anecdote.

    In any case, there are always bad (and good) signs of things to come. Maybe the point is to make them less bad (prevent the genocides?) by having everyone be political in the right way – the democratic way, I assume! But then, democracy has never, ever, ever prevented genocide. Ah, but real democracy has never been tried...
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    I'm not American, thankfully. — StreetlightX

    Oh – my bad!

    But why are you shilling for our ideology online, then?

    As for politics as predicament - that's another interesting one. A problem to be solved, rather than a field of life to be negotiated. Of course those who want to 'solve' politics have always been the willing to do the worst. — StreetlightX

    I'm not sure any one quality unites the ones willing to do the worst, except maybe that they could.
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    ↪frank
    I think you might have a lot of things that run just because people do their own thing without thinking about anything.

    But then, I don't think all things run because of politics, and this is supposed to be about politics. I don't see what politics there is without guns. If no one's threatening to shoot you, it's not politics. Like this forum – the reason this discussion isn't political is because unenlightened left, since no one could do anything to him.

    And you're right that we pay taxes because our accountants can't get us out of it, but you didn't continue the chain of reasoning far enough. Since we don't, then not doing so results in an audit...resisting an audit results in an arrest...resisting an arrest results in being shot.
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    ↪frank
    If there's no gun at the end of it, it's not power, since then people can just ignore you. Who would pay taxes if you couldn't be imprisoned for it? And what do you think happens if you resist imprisonment?
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    ↪StreetlightX
    I think that people usually are in a reactive position with respect to politics. We as Americans (I am assuming you are American, given the hand-wringing over democracy) have as our history one long consolidation of federal power over local authorities, generally accompanied by genocide for the natives.

    So yeah, for most people politics is a quasi-natural predicament they're born in ("death and taxes"), or something that consumes them (like a tidal wave). Is the average person a "political actor?" Maybe in the sense that they tend to be complicit, which they can hardly be blamed for.
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    Sometimes this too. But there are plenty of other ways in the politics plays out, as I tried to relate. — StreetlightX

    I don't see the examples you identify as antithetical to what I said – in the end, it's still about who gets to kill who (or some proxy for it, like imprisonment).
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    In other words, the question has moved from "which nation gets to kill which other nation" to "which race gets to kill which other race," etc. and some people like that, some don't.
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    What other kind of politics is there? — StreetlightX

    Politics is about force, and which groups get to kill which other groups if they don't obey. So it's always going to be identity politics since there's always a group with the gun.

    I suspect what people mean by identity politics when they rail against it is that the groups along which people identify are things like race, gender, etc., rather than class (as leftists would like), nationality (as nationalists would like), religion (as the religious would like), etc.
  • We are responsible ONLY for what we do NOT control
    So if I kill someone on purpose, I'm not responsible?
  • Are you a genius? Try solving this difficult Logic / Critical Reasoning problem
    Only C) follows.

    "No people are not dinosaurs" -> ~Ex[Px ^ ~Dx]
    This is NOT true, so:
    ~~Ex[Px ^ ~Dx]
    Ex[Px ^ ~Dx]

    This is equivalent to saying that there is a person who isn't a dinosaur. But this is just what C) says, on the usual logical reading of 'some.'

    Clearly A), B), and D) don't follow from this.
  • Houses are Turning Into Flowers
    Because insofar what we call houses and flowers are concerned, one cannot possibly be talking about houses and flowers as we know them, even if to reject the idea that houses cannot turn into flowers. — StreetlightX

    Huh? Why?
  • Error in Russell's "On Denoting" exemple?
    'Begat' traditionally refers to paternity. 'Bore' refers to maternity.
  • Work Notes
    The world, in all the multiplicity of its parts and forms, is the manifestation, the objectivity, of the one will to live. Existence itself, and the kind of existence, both as a collective whole and in every part, proceeds from the will alone. The will is free, the will is almighty. The will appears in everything, just as it determines itself in itself and outside time. The world is only the mirror of this willing; and all finitude, all suffering, all miseries, which it contains, belong to the expression of that which the will wills, are as they are because the will so wills. Accordingly with perfect right every being supports existence in general, and also the existence of its species and its peculiar individuality, entirely as it is and in circumstances as they are, in a world such as it is, swayed by chance and error, transient, ephemeral, and constantly suffering; and in all that it experiences, or indeed can experience, it always gets its due. For the will belongs to it; and as the will is, so is the world. Only this world itself can bear the responsibility of its own existence and nature—no other; for by what means could another have assumed it? Do we desire to know what men, morally considered, are worth as a whole and in general, we have only to consider their fate as a whole and in general. This is want, wretchedness, affliction, misery, and death. Eternal justice reigns; if they were not, as a whole, worthless, their fate, as a whole, would not be so sad. In this sense we may say, the world itself is the judgment of the world. If we could lay all the misery of the world in one scale of the balance, and all the guilt of the world in the other, the needle would certainly point to the centre.
  • Moore, Open Questions and ...is good.
    Number one: Are you reading what I'm typing? (That's not a rhetorical question, I expect you to answer.) — Terrapin Station

    Yes, I am.

    I would prefer not to continue this conversation, thanks.
  • Moore, Open Questions and ...is good.
    This is why I asked earlier whether you thought that the world only consisted of judgments. You said you didn't, and that whether it was raining wasn't a judgment. — Terrapin Station

    No. I'm sorry, but you don't appear to be following the train of conversation. Do you want to continue? I'm OK with stopping.
Home » Snakes Alive